Seems to me that Lewis struggles with the new start procedure but has otherwise been in good form. I'm reluctant to go much further than that in constructing a narrative.

I'd of course like Nico to beat him this year, though.

The narrative I have brewing is that in his mind he's succeeded enough, 3 WCs, he's with the greats, work here is done. My sense is he wants to move on to other interests and the hunger for success has waned. Early days on this theory though.

I'm not saying that Hamilton will win the title this year, but these pronouncements of his being over seem a bit premature...

In F1 there is no second peak, I can't think of any drivers that apex and then get a 2nd wind unless the ground shifts below them. A driver that has peaked can get in a situation where the car/teammate align and pull another one out of the bag, but he was faster in the past. Prost only had to beat Hill. Mansell had Patrese. Hill had the stars align to grab a WC, and Villeneuve beat him the next season, and I don't rate him too well.

It lines up. Word is Lewis is enjoying the drink and late nights way too much. This maps to his drop in form. You can only burn the candle at both ends for so long. The next races will tell us more.

This was supposedly what was holding him back before, and it was baseless then, too. One average start (Australia) and one bad start (Bahrain) do not add up to falling off. Had he not been hit by Bottas, he almost certainly would have been second. The tire strategy (using the Medium) likely meant he could not have challenged for the win, though.

He could be at the end of his run, but there's little evidence for it at the moment.

This was supposedly what was holding him back before, and it was baseless then, too. One average start (Australia) and one bad start (Bahrain) do not add up to falling off. Had he not been hit by Bottas, he almost certainly would have been second. The tire strategy (using the Medium) likely meant he could not have challenged for the win, though.

He could be at the end of his run, but there's little evidence for it at the moment.

That's kinda the point... 2nd. And it's not 2 races... we're up to 8 now where the change in form started with Nico's string of poles and wins. I was always suspicious when Lewis started to blame a mystery change in the car.

I find it interesting that many analysts dismissed the new tire rules when they were first announced. The argument, as I recall, was that the optimal choices would be quickly apparent to the teams; they'd likely converge to roughly the same strategy and the variability intended by the expanded tire choices wouldn't meaningfully affect the outcomes on Sunday. In fact, that hasn't been the case at all.

If Hamilton was slower than Nico in qualifying, I think the argument that he has peaked could be true, but actually it seems Hamilton is back to form with the new season start. Remember he qualified ahead of Nico by a pretty big margin in Australia, and edged out Nico under pressure in Bahrain (in other words, he's faster than Nico). The 2 loses in the races are all just down to the start/clutch not working as planned for Hamilton, and not really reflecting his actual race performance.

If Hamilton was slower than Nico in qualifying, I think the argument that he has peaked could be true, but actually it seems Hamilton is back to form with the new season start. Remember he qualified ahead of Nico by a pretty big margin in Australia, and edged out Nico under pressure in Bahrain (in other words, he's faster than Nico). The 2 loses in the races are all just down to the start/clutch not working as planned for Hamilton, and not really reflecting his actual race performance.

The narrative I have brewing is that in his mind he's succeeded enough, 3 WCs, he's with the greats, work here is done. My sense is he wants to move on to other interests and the hunger for success has waned. Early days on this theory though.

It's quite possible. He's matched Senna which he claims was his goal (or was that Alonso?). However, pretty silly to make any calls afterRACE 2 of 20 or 21.